Delyanne Barros Is Excited CNN Chose A Woman Of Color To Host Their Financial Podcast - Exclusive

CNN launched its financial podcast, "Diversifying," in late February of this year. According to the media company, the podcast "demystifies and humanizes money." A key way CNN is doing that is through their host, Delyanne Barros. As a young woman of color, Barros knows she's not what most people picture when they think of a finance expert, and that's exactly why she thinks she was the perfect choice for the podcast.

Before ever going into finance, Barros worked her way through law school and landed what she thought was her dream job. But, according to her website, she realized she was still deep in debt and not fulfilled by her career. Instead of sticking to her original path, Barros started investing. Through learning about finances, she got out of debt and is now on track for early retirement. 

After her success, the self-made money expert began sharing what she'd learned on her Instagram and TikTok. Now, her CNN podcast is giving her even more people to share with. In a recent interview with The List, Barros shared why she's the right person to host "Diversifying" and how she hopes she can continue to push the conversation forward.

Speaking to The List, Delyanne Barros said people were "really surprised" that CNN selected her to host their new financial podcast. "It was very unexpected, bringing somebody from outside of CNN. I'm not one of their reporters. I'm not coming from inside the company," she explained.

Along with coming from outside CNN, as a Latina woman, Barros came into the financial industry as an outsider. And she believes herself and other women of color have been left out of the conversation for too long. "If you look around the personal finance space, you're going to see that we are very much a minority in the space," the money coach shared. "That's why CNN wanted to launch this kind of podcast because they wanted to provide a platform for people who have been left out of the conversation, and specifically, it's been women and people of color."

Although seeing a young woman of color as a CNN podcast host may be unexpected for some people, Barros believes it was a good move on the part of the media company. By bringing her on as host, Barros said, "they're really putting their money where their mouth is with it. It's surprised people in a great way."

Now that she's speaking on such a large platform, one of Delyanne Barros' biggest goals is to create an accessible space and bring people into the conversation through "Diversifying." She prides herself on diving deep into topics to get into how gender, race, and other elements can affect finances. 

"There is so much nuance to personal finance," Barros explained. "There are going to be other historical factors, and cultural factors that specifically apply to women and people of color. You can't talk about money and not talk about the gender wage gap and not talk about the racial wealth gap. You can't talk about money and not talk about discrimination. Those things are all intertwined."

Barros also literally invites more diversity into the conversation through the podcast guests she selects to interview. "I'm really proud of the guests that we've brought because 95% of them have been people of color. That was incredibly important to me as well, coming into the podcast, and CNN was on board with this," she said. "We want to feature the voices that have been looked over for so many years in other personal finance spaces."

You can listen to Diversifying on CNN Audio or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. New episodes drop each Monday.